1980 Winter Olympics - Highlights

Highlights

The most notable highlight of the Games involved the United States men's ice hockey team. The team was composed mostly of collegiate players and was not predicted to advance beyond group play. They won the gold medal, defeating the heavily favored Soviet team and Finland in the medal round. The United States team's 4–3 win over the Soviet team, which came into the 1980 Games having won 4 consecutive Olympic gold medals, became known as the "Miracle on Ice" in the US press. The win captured the hearts of Americans during a time of Cold War tensions, even though it was the win against Finland that captured the gold medal. A film about the event, called Miracle, was released in 2004.

Other notable highlights included:

• Lake Placid 1980 marked the first use of artificial snow in Olympic competition.
• Although they did not get any medals, the People's Republic of China entered the Olympics Games for the first time after the IOC agreed to designate the Republic of China "Chinese Taipei".
• Sweden's Ingemar Stenmark won both the giant slalom and the slalom.
• Hanni Wenzel won the women's giant slalom and slalom, making Liechtenstein the smallest country to produce an Olympic champion.
• Ulrich Wehling of East Germany and Irina Rodnina of the USSR won their respective events for the third time.
• Aleksandr Tikhonov of the USSR earned his fourth straight gold medal.
• Nikolay Zimyatov of the USSR earned three gold medals in cross-country skiing.
• Eric Heiden of the United States won 5 gold medals in speedskating (500m, 1,000m, 1,500m, 5,000m and 10,000m), setting 4 Olympic records and 1 world record (10,000m) in the process. Heiden was the first to win 5 individual gold medals at one Winter Games.
• Robin Cousins won gold for Great Britain in the men's singles figure skating.
• The closing ceremonies were held indoors at the Herb Brooks Arena.
• East Germany won the most medals overall (23) but had fewer golds (9) than the USSR (10).
• In possibly the most dramatic duel of the games, Sweden's Thomas Wassberg edged Finland's Juha Mieto in the 15 km cross-country skiing by 0.01 seconds, the closest margin of victory ever in Olympic cross-country skiing. This led the International Ski Federation (ISF) to time all events to the nearest 1/10 second in the future.